Tweason’ale

May 1, 2012

Reviewers:Lew Bryson - Stephen Beaumont

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

Milton , DE

A a gluten-free sorghum based beer brewed with fresh strawberries. For the sorghum, we sourced a dark, sweet, syrup with notes of molasses and pit-fruit. We also used a a dark buckwheat honey with a beautiful hay-like, earthy-malty thing that added the final touch to this Tweason’ale recipe.

From a foot away, there are sweet aromas of strawberry, but up close there’s a sharper bitter honey smell that’s not unappealing. There’s a rolling mess of flavors: kids’ cough syrup, strawberry candy, citrus tartness and a medicinal dryness on the end that still manages to cloy a bit. It looks like beer, and feels like beer in the mouth… but it tastes more like some kind of cocktail. There’s an overripe fruit aspect that I can’t quite identify. Fortunately, I’m gluten-tolerant.- Lew Bryson

Dogfish gets around the problem of making a gluten-free beer in a barley environment by using sorghum syrup rather than grain, which strikes me as quite clever. Still, this richly copper-hued beer with a distinctly strawberry-ish nose doesn’t escape the thinness that seems to plague such beers, with a sweet and fruity, almost syrupy body that starts as full as it ever gets—which isn’t very—and then peters out to nothingness. A light refresher served cold.- Stephen Beaumont

Lew BrysonLew Bryson writes about beer and whiskey from his home in southeast Pennsylvania. He has a family and two dogs. That's all you need to know.

Stephen BeaumontOnce described as "beerdom's Brillat-Savarin," Stephen Beaumont is the author of five books and countless articles on beer, spirits, food, travel and how it all goes together.